Donald Cerrone on UFC's extreme-sports restrictions: 'It sucks'

LAS VEGAS – The riders weren’t at all shy about going after Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone on Tuesday at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas.

In town this week for the Professional Bull Riders tour finals, the rodeo professionals swung in the cage as Cerrone played nice, or as nice as he can play. One rider got dropped with a leg kick.

“For them to get in here and play is so fun, man,” he told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

As cross-promotional opportunities go, there might be no person more apt to bridge bull riding and MMA than “Cowboy,” who has long harbored a wish to ride on the PBR tour.

It had been a year since Cerrone mounted a bull, but it was impossible for him not to wonder what it would be like to ride this week – and also impossible to keep himself from asking the UFC whether he could.

“That would be some serious s–t,” he said. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to get on one of those bulls. The answer is 100 percent no, I’m sure, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, you know?”

The answer was already no, in fact. Cerrone’s request hadn’t hung in the air for more than a second before a chorus of PR officials from the tour and UFC shot it down. “Bad idea,” they said, in so many words.

Cerrone had already heard UFC President Dana White give a “hell no” to the idea he might be allowed to trade his four-ounce gloves for a set of heavy-duty leather ones that might keep him from going into orbit while on a bucking beast.

And on Tuesday, he needn’t be reminded that a clause recently added to the bout agreements of UFC fighters precluded just such an activity.

“I think we should be able to live our life how we want to live it,” Cerrone said. “On their side (it’s), ‘We have a fight scheduled.’ And I understand that we shouldn’t be doing those things because we obligate ourselves to fighting and we’ve got to show up on the day that we’re going to be there.”

Not long after Jose Aldo injured himself on a motorcycle prior to a headlining title fight with Frankie Edgar at UFC 153, the promotion added language about extreme sports to deter another such mishap.

It’s a fair bet they had Cerrone in mind, too. From motocross to wakeboarding to rodeo, the 29-year-old fighter was, and is, an insurer’s nightmare. Two weeks prior to a fight with Jeremy Stephens at UFC on FUEL TV 3, he took a spill on a motorcycle and sustained a severe intestinal injury that required he stay in intensive care for five days.

But for Cerrone (19-4-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC), who is expected to meet Anthony Pettis (15-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC) in January, the idea that he would pull out of a bout because he got hurt being reckless is somewhat offensive. (Pettis’ recently proved there are many other ways a fighter can be knocked out of a fight.)

“The doctor said I’m not fighting,” he said of his stay in the hospital. “(I said), ‘Yeah, I am. You just clear me out of this hospital, and I’m fighting. And I did it. That’s my mindset. … I’ve never pulled out of a fight. Ever. I take fights on short notice, and I give it 100 percent every single time. So I don’t like it.”

But according to his recollection of lawyerese, the new deal while he’s under the Zuffa umbrella is: “Chill the f–k out.”

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is probably the greatest female fighter on the planet, which is a tremendous feat. So why are we seemingly so obsessed with arguing about whether she could beat up men?